What are Vietnam’s options for dealing with plastic waste?

Vietnam should set up legal framework for recycling plastic waste, reduce plastic use and find new materials to replace non-recyclable plastics, according to experts.

“The best solution would be recycling as much plastic waste as you can,” George Huber, professor of chemical and biological engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, the U.S., said when asked about possible options for Vietnam.

In the U.S., there are hundreds of material recovery facilities (MRFs) where people can leave everything that can be recycled, he said.

Either workers or robots sort the materials, including plastic, and palletize them and they are later sold to secondary recycling people who do further sorting and turn them into pellets.

There is a whole market for these pellets for making new products.

For instance, there is a company called Placon that produces food and medical packaging and other types of plastic from MRFs.

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Viet Anh